A record number of human beings are now in orbit

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The four-person crew of the Polaris Dawn mission pictured wearing their SpaceX extravehicular activity suits. (Credit: SpaceX)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Two cosmonauts and an astronaut blasted off from Kazakhstan on Wednesday on a fairly routine mission to the space station. But that Soyuz launch set a new record for the number of people simultaneously in orbit.

For the first time, there are 19 human beings orbiting the planet. They represent three different countries and are aboard three different spacecraft (though, for a brief time until the Soyuz arrived at the space station, they were spread among four).

The previous record, according to Space.com, was 17 people, set last May when two different Chinese crews were at their space station for a brief time.

Who’s in space right now

International Space Station

Michael Barratt (USA)
Nikolai Chub (Russia)
Matthew Dominick (USA)
Tracy Caldwell Dyson (USA)
Jeanette Epps (USA)
Alexander Grebenkin (Russia)
Oleg Kononenko (Russia)
Aleksey Ovchinin (Russia)
Don Pettit (USA)
Ivan Vagner (Russia)
Suni Williams (USA)
Butch Wilmore (USA)

SpaceX Dragon Resilience

Sarah Gillis (USA)
Jared Isaacman (USA)
Anna Menon (USA)
Scott Poteet (USA)

Chinese Tiangong Space Station

Li Cong (China)
Li Guangsu (China)
Ye Guangfu (China)

Aboard the International Space Station

Today’s three new arrivals to the space station are all veterans of long-duration missions. The two Russians have well over 500 days in space combined, while NASA astronaut Don Petit has spent over a year in space himself.

Also at the space station are Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who launched aboard Boeing’s problem-plagued Starliner capsule. They’re waiting for their ride home aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, but that craft won’t even launch until later this month and won’t likely return to Earth with them until February.

(NASA photo)

Polaris Dawn mission

Four private astronauts are on SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission, which launched Tuesday. They are flying much higher than the space station – as far as 870 miles above the Earth. That’s the farthest any astronauts have flown since the Apollo moon missions, and it gives crewmembers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon the distinction of being the highest-flying women ever.

Next up, they will attempt to perform the first-ever spacewalk on a private mission.

The mission is largely being funded by billionaire Jared Issacman, who first flew into space on SpaceX’s private Inspiration 4 mission in 2021.